Hammer coral melting - thoughts?
 

So I have 7 different hammers (yeah i know...) and one of them is just melting away.

There's no BJD or any evidence of pests. I've tried moving it to no avail, it's been slowly melting for a month. At first I thought it was maybe splitting as all of the large hammer tips split into smaller ones, then I noticed parts of it losing color, but the color came back rather quick, yet it's still receding. In the past week it's really picked up speed and is almost gone.

About 2 weeks ago I dipped it in revive, it slimed, then perked up a bit, then continued to decline. Today the mouth was VERY WIDE open and tissue receding to almost the point of the mouth. Tips are almost completely deflated and limp.

It's so strange, everything else around it is thriving, splitting, growing, etc. Tank params are all within ideal ranges, no changes to lighting or what I use in the tank.

Any thoughts?

http://i.imgur.com/hNwsIPd.jpg
http://imgur.com/9f7EnMX

Do you have any angelfish or other types of fish that might be picking at it? Or perhaps some hungry peppermint shrimps annoying it when the lights are out?

Nothin! My clowns won't go near em, chromis loves to swim around em, and blenny just rock perches all day. The hermits only climb on my bubble coral and acans. I've spent a fair bit of time (hours!) in the day and lights out looking to see anything, but nada.

if your parameters are truly all in check along with temp and salinity and the tank occupants aren't harassing it then what else can you do? i'm a believer that not every coral is going to thrive in every tank so the last thing i would ever do is tinker around to save it when you have a good thing going otherwise.

I had that with a torch. I had bad salinty solution. So my salt levels where way of and through all my numbers out of wack. All my softies where great and Lps where up and down. Though the torch just slowly died.

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I totally agree!

I'd be more inclined to believe that there is some sort of disease or pest that is not known about.

Tried a last ditch lugols dip the other day and she dead :(. Everything else is killing it so I think it was an "STN" like situation, only had it about 5 weeks and it declined a bit each day.

Anyone know if I leave the skeleton in the tank if it could bud a new head? Or if all the polyps/tissue are gone and amphipods/hermits crawling on it = time to toss?

I have had lps that I thought was absolutely dead grow back on occasion but don't get your hopes up

IMO if it's dead and cuc is on it I would get rid of it. There could be some sort of pest or disease which may pollute your water. I personally would weigh out the risks and considering you have several other hammers I wouldn't want anything spreading to them. :neutral:

Good call! I was just holding out hope, it was orange branching...and expensive :cry: :cry:

What it an Aussie coral? Those are sometimes harder to keep if your water parameters are not consistent.

Sorry late to the conversation here I have a huge hammer and frogspawn colony/garden in my tank I have two types of hammer the common green and the other is a purple hammer variation.

This is just my take on it

It is not uncommon for my hammer to have heads melt away yet the surrounding heads all are healthy there is no rhyme or reason to it where I'll have a swath of hammers melt away but the rest are healthy. Hammer skeletons are relatively fragile and are easy to break yet the coral is a relatively hardy species and grows relatively fast

As to your situation as others have stated don't make huge changes just to save one coral as it may adversely affect other coral. In my experience if the hammer heads starts to melt away there is little you can do to save that head just focus on saving the surviving heads

Hammers at least in my tank like strong light, low end of moderate flow and likes being high up on the rocks

I ended up tossing it last night. I used my 30x loupe to exam it, but saw nothing. Sucks because it was expensive and, of course, the freebie green/green hammer that came with it is thriving lol, but such is life!

I think it might have been damaged when I got it or during shipping as it never quite seemed happy in my tank and my other euphyllia are all SO happy :mrgreen:, aussie type included!

Could be a one off for sure. Sucks for the loss, but post some photos of your hammer domination at some point :smile: